On The Border Mexican Grill & Cantina

Great management, great service and great food! Our kiddos enjoyed the kids menu (including dessert) and we enjoyed a refreshing watermelon margarita. Food was served hot and fresh. Friendly and patient servers, excellent management. Saludos a Manager Mike!

I love this place! The food is delicious and the watermelon margarita is exceptionally good! They have lunch specials everyday until 4pm, including weekends! Their tortillas are also the best! I’ve only tasted tortillas that good when I went to San Antonio.

They must have a new manager because their service and food is on point now. Their new watermelon margaritas are amazing and super cheap during happy hour. If you like Tex-​Mex you’ll love this place.

I haven’t eaten at «On The Border» for several years; not since they closed the location on River road. I always enjoyed their food and margaritas and we happened to be at an event next to this location so a group of us decided to have lunch here.
The service was pretty good considering there were 15 of us and then 6 more joined our table. It could have been better but I will cut them some slack on the service. The 2 stars for this review is for the food.
Every one ordered something different and all the comments were «it’s okay». It definitely didn’t taste as good as I remembered. The drinks were very good and we all ordered a second cocktail.
I wouldn’t go out of my way to eat here again and for sure there are better places in Tucson to get Mexican food.

Great lunch with our two young kids!
Our server was in training but was excellent! Very attentive to anything we needed. More salsa, drink refills. Food was hot, fresh– just what I’d expect from OTB. Hands down– the BEST part was that they brought out a dough ball along w the standard coloring page/​menu. The dough ball was awesome!!! Like the best thing for kids at ANY restaurant. Thank u OTB for the genius idea!!!

Went for lunch with the family while on vacation. Was promptly asked «if I was sure, as it would be a 15 minute wait.» I looked at the less than half full restaurant, and told her no problem. 25 minutes later and still not seated or even acknowledged, we gave up and walked out.

Food was amazing! Our waiter will has the personality of a brick wall raised his eyebrows at us several times in disdain
While we ordered, there is no grace in that will…

Come here every year during the big Gem & Mineral Shows. The main reason I come here is Nancy, the bartender, she remembers me! Over my 40+ years of going to bars, I can count on one hand the great bartenders and Nancy is one of them. And the food is great! I highly recommend On the Border and Nancy.

Our first time in Tucson and I’m glad we stopped by here. Excellent customer service. We really enjoyed our dinner especially because of KEVIN, super cool human! Thank you.

The food was better than the last two times. If you haven’t been to this place, you’re missing out.
I had the enchilada plate (from the pick 3). What a deal. Simply delicious. The rice was tasty. I didn’t try the black beans. I was stuffed. Again, you’ll enjoy going to this place.
One troubling note. I should’ve spoken to the manager but failed to do so. The waitress asked for our ID. She stated,“You don’t know how many people lie.” Interestingly, she informed the much larger group behind us, «I don’t need to see you ID card. I trust you.» She didn’t ask for ID for the couple behind us nor the couple to our right. I was a bit upset so I felt it would be best not to say anything at the time. You can’t take back the spoken word.
Regardless, she was a pretty decent server.

Came to celebrate OTB birthday. They had 1.82 drinks and let’s just say I left feeling pretty good :). No worries I had a designated driver :). The food is okay here nothing to write home about. The chicken tortilla soup is my favorite at OTB. It’s really the only reason I dine here. The bartender was great and he made sure the drinks kept coming. So if you’re looking for a great happy try OTB

Underrated. A mixed bag, but a lot of items are very good and we never have to wait for a table.
The cheese enchiladas are Velveeta. The gumminess is a dead giveaway. Yuck.
But we’ve liked everything else so far. Crisp warm tortilla chips, fresh spicy salsa, a great green tomatillo sauce… I thought the guacamole needed a little lime but it was fresh and tasty. Service was good. They got the sauce wrong on my dish but fixed it fast, without my needing to ask. Overall a solid choice.

Definitely redeemed themselves. Lunch was bomb. I had the steak quesadilla and tortilla soup for a low price and everything was separated when I came to pick it up. The quesadilla looked so good I didn’t have time to take a picture. The chips and salsa on the side was well appreciated as well! Taste was on point!

Yes, yes I know. the big, bad Mexican food chain! But hold on now! You have got to come in and try their Hatch Chile Chicken Enchiladas! WOW!
I am a huge HC fan and this dish does not disappoint! Hubs had the Maui Fish Tacos… another winner!

The food was good mostly, I had a chimi and my wife had a chicken enchilada and a beef taco. The chimi wasn’t close to the quality at Micha’s but the chips and salsa were very good. The beef in the taco was salty though. Overall, ok service but when the drinks came my wife asked for more salsa and the barmaid forgot. It’s not that she was overly busy just young and inexperienced. Had to ask for refills on the iced tea. The rating might have been a three or four stars except for $ 35 I would expect better food and service.
Update: one other issue I forgot initially too which was that the menus had just been wiped off and were both still wet and the pages stuck together. The thought of wash rag water on my fingers while I tried to enjoy the chips and salsa kind of took the fun out of it.

There’s a definite chain restaurant ethic going on here, which is not necessarily bad, but I noticed immediately. I think it was the menus. It looked somehow identical to an Olive Garden menu.
The typical chain ethic isn’t always bad. The place was very clean. The food was fine. Not bad, not incredible. I had the three-​sauce chicken burrito, in which the chicken was cubes of reconstituted meat, a la nuggets. It still tasted good though; probably better than actual chicken flesh.
The bad news is, the portions were underwhelming, not the «how can I eat all this?!» that comes with a genuine Mexican place. For the price, which was reasonable, I would have expected more volume. And, finally, the staff seemed about ready for Miller time, it being completely empty when I went. The whole place had the air of not being Mexican.
The queso was orange,
The building was nice.
I’d like it more genuine,
More beans and more rice.

We were visiting our son who attends college in Tucson. He had heard this place was great, so we were excited to try it out.
The grilled brisket taco was tasty. They were great at leaving off the many things I don’t eat, such as onions and peppers. That left it pretty plain. They were great bout letting me order a side of sour cream. The food was OK. My husband and son thought theirs was OK.
The disappointment was that the margaritas looked exciting on the menu, but when they arrived at the table, they were quite plain, and looked nothing like the photos. They looked a bit icy, and really were NOT exciting.
I do not see any reason to return.

Visiting the area and noticed this restaurant. Name recognition right off since I remember seeing their salsa in the stores. Had to stop in… SO Happy I did! Loved every bit of my meal. I tried the stuffed jalapenos, combo plate with chili relleno, taquito and enchilada. Loved it all. The queso and salsa were on point. I’m glad I can buy those in STL.

I was at work, deliberating between dining alone at Baja Café or Taco Giro — neither of which I’ve been to before — when I received a call from my husband, inviting me to have lunch with him and the kids at On the Border. Enthusiastically, I agreed.
The hostess graciously provided us with a table for eight for our group of four away from other guests, so that we didn’t torment any of our fellow customers. The dining room has the perfect acoustics for my family: Just loud enough to stifle any inappropriate outbursts from the kids, but not so loud that you can’t carry on a conversation in a normal tone of voice.
The chips and salsa is my bad thing. I generally scarf so many chips that I don’t have room for the actual meal once it arrives. Much like movie theater popcorn, I just can’t stop gobbling. I know the salsa is probably sitting in a big jug with a twist-​off top back in the fridge, but I’d rather not think about that. The taste is complex– a little bit sweet, a little bit tart, and a little bit spicy.
The food was delightfully average: faux Mexican comfort food. Don’t tell anyone, but we used to eat here occasionally before we had kids. My husband enjoyed the deliciously unhealthy queso, but then again he also digs Velveeta and Fritos Bean Dip so take that with a grain of salt.
The bathroom was spotless, but the music was blaring. And thank God for that, because it drowned out my daughter asking me in her outside voice if I was making #1 or #2.
At the end of our meal, my three-​year-​old son made a break for the front door and pushed his way out. As I charged after him, I slipped on the tile and fell flat on my face. This doesn’t really have anything to do with anything, but everyone in the dining room enjoyed the spectacle so I figured I might as well share it here, too, since that wrapped up our lunch date.

Today was the first time I’ve eaten at this restaurant.
I wasnt wowed by anything about this place. However, the food was pretty good. I had the grilled fish tacos. They were super yummy and very colorful. Even though the dish only came with two tacos versus the traditional three, it was more than enough as the helpings were huge.
I also had a «skinny» Margarita. I thought the «skinny» part meant that it had less calories than a regular Margarita. But no, «skinny» means less alcohol. It tasted good, but it seemed more like juice than an alcoholic beverage.
All in all, this place was alright, but pretty forgettable.